Cleveland law firm Zashin & Rich Co. has leased the last full floor available at Ernst & Young Tower in the Flats East Bank Neighborhood.Zashin & Rich, which focuses on representing employers in workplace law and individuals in family law, will hike the size of its offices by 50% when it moves next June to the fourth floor of the office building on Main Avenue in downtown Cleveland.The firm will exit a 14,000-square-foot office at 55 Public Square for the new, 21,000-square-foot office because its 25 lawyers and 20 staffers had long ago “overwhelmed” the available space, said Stephen Zashin, co-managing partner and head of the firm's employment and labor practice group.Mr. Zashin said the expanded office space will ensure the firm has room to continue its growth for some time —accommodating at least another 14 lawyers — and will give it a chance to embrace a more effective office layout and new technology.

The new office will have eight conference rooms compared with four in the current space, and the firm will shed the last remnant of its law library with the move, Mr. Zashin said. The added conference rooms are needed for client meetings because offices of individual Zashin & Rich attorneys will not have doors, he said, which gives the space a variation on popular open-office designs.Moving from 55 Public Square, which many firms prize because of its proximity to the Cuyahoga County Justice Center and federal courts, was not an issue because so much of the firm's practice takes it to locations around the country. It could have moved to the suburbs but decided to stay downtown because “we're a Cleveland firm,” Mr. Zashin said.However, Mr. Zashin said the move to the Flats from Public Square is a plus in terms of parking. He said the firm will not miss increased rates for parking and competition for parking spaces since the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland opened.“Parking is a challenge there now,” Mr. Zashin said of its current space, and the new office will be more accessible for clients and offer more visibility for the firm.The firm's workplace and employment practice represents clients from publicly traded national corporations to small businesses in matters ranging from discrimination and harassment complaints to workers' compensation. The firm's domestic relations practice — which includes divorce representation for high net-worth individuals — is headed by Mr. Zashin's brother, Andrew, and the two co-manage the firm.

The lease is a milestone for Ernst & Young Tower, which opened last spring.Adam Fishman, a principal at Fairmount Properties, which co-developed Flats East Bank with Wolstein Group, said in a news release that the lease takes the building's last full floor of available space. With it, the 23-story building is 91% leased, he said.Stephen Zashin declined to disclose how much the firm's rent will be.“From our perspective, it's more about fit and opportunity,” he said. “You want to be in a building with marquee tenants, and that's where we will be.” Cleveland-based Vocon will design the office with a “Cleveland-centric” theme to support local businesses and the city rather than hire one of the out-of-town architects it interviewed, Mr. Zashin said.Zashin & Rich has grown from six lawyers when it expanded its practice to include employment law in 1996, Mr. Zashin said. It also has two lawyers in a Columbus office it opened in 1998.

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